Death-Watch Read Free

upstairs cried:
    “Who’s there?” A stirring and rustling; then the voice cried: “I can’t go past him. I can’t go past him, I tell you! He’s all over blood.” And it whimpered.
    The words brought a harsh sound from Pierce before he ran forward. His light preceded him to the staircase, his two companions following closely. It was a prim stairway, with heavy banisters, dull-flowered carpet underfoot, and brass stair-rods; it was a symbol of solid English homes, where no violence can come, and did not creak as they mounted it. Facing its top, double doors were opened at the back of the upper hall. The dull light came from beyond them— from a room where two people were staring at the threshold, and a third person sat in a chair with his head in his hands.
    Spilled across the threshold, a man lay partly on his right side and partly on his back. The yellow light showed him clearly, making a play with shadows on the muscles of the face and hands that still twitched. His eyelids still fluttered, and showed the whites underneath. His mouth was open; his back seemed to arch a little as though in pain, and Melson could have sworn his nails made a scratching noise on the carpet; but these must have been nerve-reflexes after death, for the blood had already ceased to flow from his mouth. His heels gave a final jerk and rattle on the floor; the eyelids froze open.
    Melson felt a little sick. He took a step backwards suddenly, and nearly missed his footing on the stairs. Added to the sight of the dead man, the trivial slip came close to unnerving him.
    One of the people in the doorway was the woman who had cried out. He could see her only as a silhouette, the gleam on her yellow hair. But now she darted round the dead man, losing a slipper, which tumbled out grotesquely across the floor, and seized the constable’s arm.
    “He’s dead,” she said. “Look at him.” The voice rose hysterically. “Well? Well? Aren’t you going to arrest him? She pointed to the man standing in the doorway, who was staring down dully. “He shot him. Look at the gun in his hand.”
    The other roused himself. He became aware that he was holding, by one finger through the trigger-guard, an automatic pistol whose barrel looked long and unwieldy. Nearly letting it fall, he jammed it into one pocket as the constable stepped forward; then he wheeled out, and they saw that his head was trembling with a horrible motion like a paralytic’s. Seen sideways in the light, he was a neat, prim, clean-shaven little man, with a pince-nez whose gold chain went to one ear and fluttered to his trembling. He had a pointed jaw, which ordinarily might have been determined like his sharp mouth; dark tufts of eyebrows, a long nose, and indeterminate mouse-coloured hair combed pompadour. But now the face was wrinkled and loose with what might have been terror or cowardice or pure funk. It was made grotesque when he tried to assume an air of dignity—a family solicitor?—when he raised one hand in a deprecating way, and even achieved a parody of a smile.
    “My dear Eleanor,” he said, with a jerk in his throat …
    “Keep him away from me,” said the girl. “Aren’t you going to arrest him? He shot that man. Don’t you see his gun ?”
    A rumbling, common-sense, almost genial voice struck across the hysteria. Dr. Fell, his shovel-hat in his hand and his big mop of hair straggling across his forehead, towered benevolently over her.
    “Harrumph,” said Dr. Fell, scratching his nose. “Are you sure of that, now? What about the shot? The three of us were outside the house, you know, and we heard no shot.”
    “But didn’t you see it? There, when he had it in his hand? It’s got one of those silencer-things on the end …”
    She turned away quickly, because the policeman had been bending over the body. He got up stolidly and went to the fascinated little man in the doorway.
    “All right, sir,” he said, without emotion. “That gun. Hand it over.”
    The